The Magic Keeps Rolling at Disney Studios

While Southern California’s entertainment community continues to adjust to the latest shifts in the always-evolving production landscape, one constant bedrock has been Disney Studios
in Burbank.

There, Local 40 crews are at full capacity managing a slate of planned and in-progress projects ahead.

“We just finished Team Disney. We had a full street shut down on Buena Vista (Street), for a big fan room there,” said Austin Nickels, foreman of Disney’s in-house HVAC crew. “We’ve got more in the works, including at least six more air handler installations across two soundstages.”

During a recent visit, Nickels and two Local 40 Brothers guided me down an elevator to the roofline, where a newly installed bank of air handlers whirred almost noiselessly.

“We used to have one giant axle fan, up here,” said Local 40 gang boss Richard Bush. “It was about 36 inches around—you’re moving all that air through that one fan.”

That fan was replaced by nine smaller fans, making everything smoother and quieter. 

“It’s also nice to have the redundancy,” Bush said. “You can ramp the fans up or down—however you want. It’s way more energy efficient. It’s amazing.”

These infrastructure updates are only half of the equation for Local 40’s Disney crew. The other half is maintaining a culture of excellence.

At the Disney animation building, Ray Kaplan and his team undertook an 18-month project to replace the entire lighting control system while the building was occupied. 

“We had to work with the teams here and the building manager to make this happen in a very tight scope without disrupting the flow of work,” said Kaplan. “There were a lot of logistical and financial challenges.”

A Culture of Excellence

Disney also originally wanted to award the work to an outside contractor, Kaplan said, which added another challenge. “I fought very hard to give us an opportunity to take this in-house, give us a shot to show what we can do, and they’re very happy with
 the outcome.”

That success has borne fruit.

The next project is at Disney’s Frank G. Wells building on the far end of the studio lot, where Local 40 members will be installing the lighting system while the building is occupied and
in use. 

“We’ve got a lighting company and my electrical engineers working on putting those drawings together,” Kaplan said. “We’re getting very close to being able to make that material purchase and then start breaking ground on
the project.”